The technology allowing for detection of the virus in a patient’s breath was developed as part of the TOXI-Triage project at Loughborough University in Leicestershire.
Partners from IMSPEX Group - Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS) specialists - as well as the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Germany’s Klinikum Dortmund Hospital, have utilized the technology to achieve certain results.
The aim is to detect “breath signatures” that can be used to rapidly distinguish Covid-19 from other respiratory conditions at point of need. Such tests could be useful when used at hospital emergency departments, workplaces or other settings with no laboratory support.
The study examined 98 patients, 31 of whom has Covid-19, while others suffered from illnesses such as viral pneumonia and cardiac conditions.
“We are hugely encouraged by these findings. Employing tried and tested techniques used during the TOXI-Triage project, suggests that Covid-19 may be rapidly distinguished from other respiratory conditions. To develop this technique further larger studies are required, together with complementary GC-MS studies, to build on the data collected so far. If shown to be reliable, it offers the possibility for rapid identification or exclusion of Covid-19 in emergency departments or primary care that will protect healthcare staff, improve the management of patients and reduce the spread of Covid-19,” Paul Thomas, Professor of Analytical Science from Loughborough’s Department of Chemistry, said about the feasibility of the study.
Currently, the two main tests for coronavirus involve invasive means of taking samples, as opposed to the “minimally invasive test, that produces results rapidly” the partnership of scientists is working on, according to Emma Brodrick, Systems Application Manager at IMSPEX.
At this point of research, scientists will need to “rapidly acquire more data to continue to develop the test, and institutional and investor support to scale our manufacturing capability”.
1/3 Two Novel #COVID19 #diagnostics:
— EClinicalMedicine – Published by The Lancet (@EClinicalMed) October 25, 2020
1)Quantify olfactory functions in asymptomatic patients identified 82% of positive carriers
2)Breath-analysis identified COVID-19 with 80% and 81.5% accuracy in Edinburgh and Dortmund respectively.@EricTopol
Read full studies below ↓
The research paper, Diagnosis of COVID-19 by analysis of breath with gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry - a feasibility study, has been published by The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine journal.
